Biedermeier

In Central Europe, Biedermeier refers to work in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (Vienna Congress), the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions and contrasts with the Romantic era which preceded it.

Literature and Music

The term Biedermeier comes from the pseudonym Gottlieb Biedermaier, used by the country doctor Adolf Kussmaul and the lawyer Ludwig Eichrodt in poems, printed in the Munich Fliegenden Blättern (Flying Sheets), parodying the poems of the Biedermeier era as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems (Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit (Biedermann's Evening Cosiness) and Bummelmaiers Klage (Bummelmaier's Complaint)) that Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine. As a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900.

Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Eduard Mörike, Wilhelm Müller and Adelbert von Chamisso, the last two of which have well-known musical settings by Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert respectively.

Biedermeier can be identified with two trends in early nineteenth-century German history.

The first trend is growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, and with it a new kind of audience. The early Lieder of Schubert, which could be performed at the piano without substantial musical training, illustrate the broadened reach of art in this period. Further, Biedermeier writers were themselves mainly middle-class, as opposed to the Romantics, who were mainly drawn from the nobility.

The second trend is the growing political oppression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars prompting people to concentrate on the domestic and (at least in public) the non-political. Due to the strict publication rules and censorship, writers primarily concerned themselves with non-political subjects, like historical fiction and country life. Political discussion was usually confined to the home, in the presence of close friends. This atmosphere changed by the time of the revolutions in Europe in 1848.

Architecture

Biedermeier architecture is marked by simplicity and elegance, exemplified by the paintings of Jacob von Alt and Carl Spitzweg. Through the unity of simplicity, mobility and functionality the Biedermeier created tendencies of crucial influence for the Jugendstil / Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus and the 20th century.

Furniture design

An influential style of furniture design from Germany during the years 1815-1848 based on utilitarian principles.

References

Jane K. Brown, in 'The Cambridge Companion to the Lied', ed. James Parsons, 2004, Cambridge.

Architectural styles | German art | German literature

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Literature and Music

Architecture

Furniture design

References